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Wednesday, November 1, 2017

Learning for Littles with LEGO Education STEAM Park

Like most folks, I have loved LEGO bricks since I was kid. There was nothing quite like dumping the tub of pieces on the floor, letting my creativity run, and building whatever my imagination could dream up. As an adult I have continued to create with LEGO, such as my recent stop-motion animation activity with Google Slides.

Over the years I have had a blast getting to play and learn with LEGO with my own children, and now with my first grandson here, I get to pass on my love to one more generation!

He's only three-months old at the moment, but thankfully I won't have to wait long to get him building and learning. I recently got a chance to attend a LEGO Education event where they launched their latest product... STEAM Park.

STEAM Park is an early learning set of LEGO DUPLO bricks designed to help preschoolers learn about STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and math) by working together on activities with gears, ramps, and more. See below for all the details and resources about this new learning set.

What is STEAM Park?

The LEGO Education STEAM Park set includes lots of pieces such as gears, wheels, pulleys, ramps, spinners, and more. In addition to the physical items, there is also a Teacher Guide with a collection of ready-to-use lessons and activities.

The provided activities are designed to teach children concepts including:

  • How and why things roll, and predict and measure distances using non-standard units
  • How and why things float, and design and test sails
  • Probability, making predictions, and recording data
  • Different forms of art, and creating and role-playing a show
  • How gears work
  • Cause and effect by creating chain reactions

At the launch event I got to interact with about 20 preschoolers as they explored and created with this set (OK, I played with the LEGO pieces too). It was great to see them learn by doing, as they experimented with the set, discovering what each item could do and what they could make with them. Over the course of an hour I watched them create trains, race tracks, catapults, pulley systems, and more.

Here are some snapshots from the event:









More Details

If you would like more details, here is the press release from LEGO Education:

LEGO® Education Brings STEAM Learning to Preschool Classrooms

New LEGO® Education STEAM Park sparks preschoolers’ natural curiosity in science, technology, engineering, arts and math through endless versatility, creativity and learning through play

Billund, Denmark (November 1, 2017) - LEGO® Education announced today its new Early Learning resource, STEAM Park designed to spark preschoolers’ natural curiosity in science, technology, engineering, arts, and math (STEAM). Children work in groups of six with LEGO DUPLO® bricks to build an amusement park with rides and attractions designed to help them discover gears and ramps, experiment, and gain confidence with trial and error.

"We are happy to offer our new LEGO Education STEAM Park solution during a time when it is more important than ever for young children to discover what’s possible through science, technology, engineering, arts and math," said Esben Stærk Jørgensen, president of LEGO Education. "STEAM Park helps children learn the formative 21st century skills including problem solving, collaboration, creativity and critical thinking which are needed to help them succeed in all subject areas throughout their education. We also know that with STEAM jobs predicted to grow at almost twice the rate of other job sectors, in just the next decade alone, exploring these skills now will help prepare all children for the jobs of tomorrow."

The new set is accompanied by the LEGO Education STEAM Park Teacher Guide, which features eight STEAM-centric lessons created with insights from the latest research on STEAM in early learning and the National Association for the Education of Young Children’s science, math and technology guidelines. The LEGO Education Pinterest page also offers a collection of creative and playful preschool STEAM activities.

LEGO Education STEAM Park is available throughout the world today or in the coming weeks. Visit LEGOEducation.com/preschool or contact your local LEGO Education distributor to learn more.


Disclaimer: I was not compensated by LEGO Education for this post. I just really like LEGO stuff!

Post by Eric Curts. Bring me to your school, organization, or conference with over 50 PD sessions to choose from. Connect with me on Twitter at twitter.com/ericcurts and on Google+ at plus.google.com/+EricCurts1

1 comment:

  1. Wow, my 2 and 4 year old would love this. I wonder when it will be available in Australia? We'll have to make sure Santa knows about this! ;)

    ReplyDelete